How to make folded origami candy boxes as favors and decorations

You may remember her colorful communion bread, or her invitations made with a sewing machine, but Elizabeth Jancewicz is back with her origami and candy favors that can also double as decor.

I learned how to make these from adorable Japanese children when I volunteered at a school while I was living in Japan a few years ago.

DIY origami candy boxes folding instructions

Ok, let's get to folding. A simple cube-shaped box takes 6 pieces of paper, and to create a larger box like the ones I used for my wedding favors, it takes 12 pieces of paper. You can make an even larger box using 30 pieces of paper, but you'll have to figure that one out on your own.

Each single sheet of paper needs to be folded a specific way to create one of the 6 or 12 (or 30) pieces, so I'll give you those instructions first. If you mess up with these first instructions, your box will not fit together correctly later. Follow every instruction exactly as stated! Ok, let's start.

 

Pretty simple so far, right? Let's continue on to step 8:

 

Not sure how obvious it is, but I learn almost totally through visuals and then trial and error. That also tends to be how I teach. So I personally don't feel as though the written instructions are necessary, but I hope they do help and don't hinder.

 

That last part may get a bit confusing. My best advice is to keep trying until what you have matches the photo.

Now, practice creating more of the pieces above. Make six, for a cube, or 12, for a larger box… or 3,000, for wedding favors.

This next step I'm about to show you is how these pieces fit together. If your pieces are folded precisely with crisp edges, they'll lock together like puzzle pieces. Here's your first basic pyramid shape, that you'll be using to build all sizes of boxes:

 

Got it? Isn't it satisfying to see abstract things coming together to form recognisable shapes? Learning is fun!

Now, let's move on to the 6-piece cube. Start with the 3-piece pyramid I already showed you above, then I'm pretty much abandoning written instructions here. Like I said earlier, it's a lot of trial and error. See what fits, see what works. I have confidence that you'll figure it out (besides, this is the easy one. If you can't get this, you might as well just give up).

 

Proud of you for not giving up. Let's move on to the 12-piece shape!

 

Whoa, you did it! I had very little confidence in you, but hey! You proved me wrong!

Here's how ours turned out

My future husband must have clocked in about sixty-or-so hours of paper folding, since each one took twelve pieces of paper, and we decided to make 200 favors!

During an eight hour road trip, I sat in the passenger seat with a huge paper bag full of these little pieces of folded paper and a couple pounds of candy, and I put them together. I stuffed each with Warheads, Jolly Ranchers, Now and Laters, Starbursts, and salt water taffy (a couple of our favorites).

Once home we finished them up and added a knotted loop with a tag to each one. One side of the tag has our names, the other side has one of two Bible verses related to honey (candy, sweets… get it?). One of the verses cracks us up:

“My son, eat honey for it is good, and the drippings of the honeycomb are sweet to your taste.” Prov 24:13

“If you have found honey, eat only enough for you, lest you have your fill of it and vomit it.” Prov 24:13

We had a good amount of left-over folded pieces, and I didn't want to waste any of the hard work my FH had put into them, so we put these larger ones together, that each take 30 pieces instead of 12, and we'll hang them around the venue grounds.

200 folded origami puzzle boxes is no easy task. Both my FH and I talked about how if we'd had any idea the kind of work it would take, we would've never tried to do this! Ha.